a young woman on an ongoing quest to savor the sweetness of life through words, art and science

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“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass,” this quote from Anton Chekhov stated perfectly the lessons I learned from Ma’am Roldan. She was a proponent of choosing words wisely, keeping in mind the value of nouns and verbs over adverbs and adjectives, and of defamiliarization, which is seeing things anew, like a child, like it is the first time the sunlight has ever kissed your skin! (As many have expressed it before and after me, including Arthur Rimbaud who said, “Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.” Picasso also said something along those lines.)

My professor redefined the way I saw art and writing, transformed my standards of aesthetics and hard work, and above all, inspired and believed in me and my abilities.

Sandra Nicole Roldan was my creative writing teacher and I hope that many more will find Great Souls like her in their journeys. She is a professor in UP Diliman and also a talented writer and teacher.

She also introduced me to Brain Pickings, which houses Maria Popova’s genius and labor of love.

A close friend of mine shared this in the most popular social networking site in the world and I thought it was worth sharing!

I haven’t posted in months and this hasty post will hardly make up for it but I will write more soon and post more things. Life has caught up with me and some things need to be dealt with outside the realm of the internet.

I reacted to this video because I believe it is life’s very impermanence that makes it more meaningful. Struggle and beauty are not two things, but one!

I agree art is how we assert our humanity, both our transience and desire to overcome that temporary state.

As Eleanor Roosevelt wonderfully said, “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”

What if art is not limited to the dance floor, the paper, the canvas, or the musical staff? What if it is also something as mundane as forgiveness and hugs?

I like the way this filmmaker thinks. I think I shall soon become a fan. If you like this stuff, watch his other videos in his channel. You will not be disappointed.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC
― Kurt Vonnegut

You’ll notice by now that I’m kind of in love with music. Aside from chocolates, bacon, cabbage and rice (not all of them together–YUCH!!!, but perhaps, in the same meal!), you can say my other addiction is music, which gave birth to my addiction to dancing.

Perhaps the reason I love quotes so much is the same with the reason, as Ray Bradbury said, we read: to find people like ourselves. To find someone who thinks like us. And the painter Agnes Martin said something that rang true with me about music.

Art is responded to with emotion … and the best art is music — that’s the highest form of art. It’s completely abstract, and we make about eight times as much response to music than any of the other arts.

My addiction has also been beautifully explained in this YouTube video by AsapScience. Apparently, music does work like drugs since it releases dopamine in our brains.

For more musical drugs, check out the singer Bobby McFerrin’s beautiful art of James Brown’s song, I Got The Feelin’

Credits go to Maria Popova of brainpickings.org again! Check out her complete post on Agnes Martin and The Science of How Music Enchants The Brain. Also, one of my newest internet haunts has been zenpencils.com! Check it out for amazing art and inspiring words. But don’t worry ’cause I’ll probably posting more of the artist/owner Gavin’s stuff here as well.